Family Board Game Review: Build or BOOM!

Race to construct an epic tower, beat your opponent, and blow things up! What could be more fun?

Introduction

Build or BOOM is a block stacking dexterity game designed to be played by even the youngest member of your family. Your goal is to race your opponent to complete a tower out of uniquely shaped blocks and BOOM their tower to keep them from winning.

Contents

30 Blueprint cards

1 card holder

2 Building Platforms with dynamite

Lots of plastic blocks including:

2 Construction Workers

8 Wood Planks

4 Steel Beams

4 Traffic Cones

8 Cement Blocks

4 Inner Arch

4 Triangle Blocks

4 Wood Arch planks

4 Barrels

The components are fun and well made. The Blueprint Cards are sturdy, have cute artwork, and have pun-ny and funny titles. The box interior is not particularly well designed and pieces get jumbled up, making the box hard to close. It definitely takes a bit of time to put back together.

Gameplay

This game is simple to learn, fast to play, and tons of fun. Each player takes a building platform with a tube attached to it with a squeezable pile of dynamite at the end. The squeezable dynamite gets placed near your opponent. The building blocks are spread out in the center of the circle formed by the platforms and tubes. The card holder and Blueprint Cards are placed to the side. Players draw a Blueprint Card and put it in the card holder. On the count of three, players race to follow the plan on the card using the blocks in the center. Once a player has completed the Blueprint, they squeeze the BOOMER. This causes their opponent’s platform to lift and topples their tower. If the winning player matched the Blueprint exactly, the player will score one point. Blocks get replaced in the middle of the table and you play again. The first person to score 10 points wins!

Is it a Family Game?

This game is absolutely playable by everyone in the family. It is designed for kids 4 yrs old and over, but is still fun and playable by the more mature members of the family. The concepts are simple to understand and no reading is required. The plastic pieces are big enough for tiny hands to manipulate and the towers are challenging for all ages. Keep in mind that unfair matches can be an issue when pitting opponents of too large of an age gap. Make sure opponents have fairly equal fine motor skills or abilities or you may run into unnecessary trouble and drama. Our 4yr old enjoyed playing with children her age, but did not enjoy playing with her older brothers.

In addition to the obvious dexterity skills that your children will practice while playing, there are opportunities to teach rudimentary physics and geometry when playing this game. Our youngest loved discussing cones, rectangular prisms and cubes. Oh, and be prepared to come up with creative ways to explain the Dad Joke style titles on the Blueprint Cards.

Conclusion

This is a fast paced family friendly game that can be enjoyed by new gamers, casual gamers, and experienced gamers alike. Because the game is dexterity based, it leads to a lot of hilarity and silliness when clumsy or silly mistakes are made. The race against the clock aspect caused by anticipation of the BOOM adds a level of excitement not found in other dexterity games. Our kids loved this one right out of the box and played away entire snow days laughing and giggling the entire time. The price point of $29.95 seems perfectly fair for the number of pieces that you get and the quality of the components. Overall, this is definitely a fun addition to the game shelf.

FCC disclosure: A copy of this game was sent to us by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

Related Post

About Stephen Duetzmann

Editor in Chief

So...who am I?

And, what makes me qualified to do this?

Well, I can tell you that I am not a web developer, or a journalist, or even a game designer. I am a Dad. I like to game. I want to game with my children. And, I have some ideas that I want to share with the world.

I'm 32 years old and I have been gaming all of my life. I'm into all kinds of games, and not just video games. Board games, tabletop games, card games and yes, even LARP games.

I've got a full time job, and I'm going back to school. I have an amazing wife and 3 wonderful children. My oldest is a 7 year old boy who is super smart and a total spazz. He's extremely excited to share his VAST (lol) video game knowledge with the world. My middle child is just learning about video games. He's 4 and he spends his time obsessing over his favorite super heroes or ponies, depending on the day. He LOVES playing games with his Daddy and big brother. My youngest is 6 months old and is learning to explore her world. She can often be found sleeping on her Daddy while I play test new games.

So, that's who I am. I'm just your typical super busy Dad who wants to share my gaming experiences with all of you.

Oh, and another thing! This website isn't all about me. I happen to have a wonderful group of friends and experts along for the ride with me. They are going to share terrific gaming information with you, too. View all posts by Stephen Duetzmann →

One Response to “Family Board Game Review: Build or BOOM!”

My 4 year old would love this! Building, falling and dynamite? There’s a party. I am a little worried over the timer part but I bet we can work around that if it’s an issue. (We have working through some frustration over doing things ‘fast’ or ‘slowly’ right now)

Great review, we are always looking for new games that are quick to learn and fun.